Despite Recovery, Americans Still Struggle to Save

The second factor is simple planning. In fact, the report found that there are fewer people in 2014 who have savings plans with specific goals or spending plans that include savings goals than last year.

"We believe that the main factor here is the continuing struggle of many middle-class families to rebuild their finances as the recovery from the Great Recession began, especially as unemployment rates started declining at the end of 2010," Brobeck said. "More than three years later, many families are still struggling to do so."

Although unemployment has fallen from its 2012 high of 8.3%, it's still high at 6.6% as of January. Underemployment is high as well and real wages are stagnant, according to CFA.

Dallas Salisbury, president and CEO of the Employee Benefit Research Institute, stressed the importance of planning.

"When it comes to saving, we know that having a plan makes a big difference," he said on the call. He referred to data from the Employee Benefit Research Institute's 2013 Retirement Confidence Survey that shows a link between financial planning and confidence. "Those who report having done a [retirement] calculation are twice as likely — twice as likely — as those who have not to say they are very confident."

America Saves Week, an initiative launched in 2001 to encourage Americans to save, is from Feb. 24 to March 1. It is intended to encourage Americans to save more by following three steps, Salisbury said.

"First is to set a goal," he said. "Decide what you want to achieve: retirement, a child's education, emergency savings. Secondly, make a plan. Determine the steps you need to take to achieve your goal. That planning step, we find, is essential. And finally, save automatically. Whether that's the ability to take advantage of automatic payroll deduction at work or the need to contact a financial institution, many that are participating in ASW, to find out which product is suitable for your goal and setting up automatic savings."

Salisbury had suggestions for ways to make it easier for individuals to save.

"Employers can play a vital role by encouraging and making it easier to participate in savings and retirement programs, through payroll deduction, automatic enrollment and the opportunity to support automatic contribution increases," he said.

Banks and credit unions could promote automatic transfers from checking to savings and investment accounts, and nonprofits could promote savings programs like individual development accounts and the myRA account proposed by President Barack Obama in his State of the Union speech.